Until recently the West Indian islands have been utilizing curricula developed in other countries. In the late sixties a few islands began to develop their own curricula. The pressure of demand from the new secondary schools for the immediate provision of material led to the rapid and efficient production of detailed curriculum guides but often precluded any fundamental study of the way children in the schools actually think. Activities were written to establish a series of concepts in science without really knowing whether the concepts were within the intellectual grasp of the majority of pupils. Unfortunately, however, very little research has been carried out to the present date (1982) or if carried out has not been documented for dissemination to the other islands. Only four studies relevant to this study could be found in the literature review.